Pro­posal to shut Mon­k­lands Hos­pi­tal will be re­viewed by NHS chief

A CON­TRO­VER­SIAL con­sul­ta­tion that rec­om­mended clos­ing a 40-year-old hos­pi­tal and mov­ing it to a new site five miles away is to be probed. NHS La­nark­shire has been ac­cused of mis­lead­ing the pub­lic over its plans for the Mon­k­lands Hos­pi­tal in Air­drie.

It car­ried out a con­sul­ta­tion which rec­om­mended mov­ing the fa­cil­ity to Gart­cosh. But for­mer SNP Health Sec­re­tary Alex Neil in­sisted the process was “rigged” to jus­tify clos­ing the cur­rent site.

He pre­vi­ously told MSPS: “The in­for­ma­tion on which they scored was in­ac­cu­rate, mis­lead­ing, un­bal­anced and very of­ten bor­der­ing on de­lib­er­ately be­ing eco­nom­i­cal with the truth.”

Health Sec­re­tary Jeane Free­man has now asked Paul Gray, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of NHS Scot­land, to carry out a re­view. She said: “Re­port­ing back to me, it will de­ter­mine whether the process has been con­sis­tent with best prac­tice, and if it has prop­erly taken the views of all stake­hold­ers into ac­count.”